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Recently I saw a video of a preacher railing at a group of sinners outside his church. He kept yelling at them, “You are going to Hell!” “You will burn forever in the flames of Hell!” I turned the video off and felt really sick within myself. There was not one word of kindness from the preacher, not one word of sorrow for the lost and confused people that he faced, not one mention of the love of Jesus for a lost world.

I cannot think of any instance where Jesus preached like that to the lost multitudes. Yes, He spoke harsh words. Yes, he told men that they were going to Hell. But he reserved those words for the scribes and Pharisees – the false religious leaders of His day. I have heard preachers rail and scream against the Mormons, the Catholics, the Muslims, the perverts, and even at college students on their campuses. But the older I get, the more I think their preaching does not follow the example of Christ. The older I get the more I think that Jesus would reserve His strongest rebukes for the religious leaders of our time. Those, like the Pharisees, who preach religiosity rather than the Gospel, those who attack the Bible in seminaries like Fuller, those who preach for money, those who preach self-help psychology, those who preach “name it and claim it” theology, those who preach a get-rich-quick prosperity message, and those who preach salvation through mouthing the words of a so-called “sinner’s prayer.” Yes! I think, if Jesus were here today, He would preach, “You are going to Hell.” But most of that kind of preaching He would reserve for the preachers and false teachers of our time! – for men who close their Sunday evening services, and leave their young people with no place of fellowship on Sunday night, for those who preach dry-as-dust verse-by-verse Bible studies, aimed at the religious-but-lost people who come on Sunday morning only, for those who bring rock music in – and shut evangelistic preaching out - of their churches, for those who say that the Blood of Jesus perished and is no longer available to cleanse lost men and women from their sins! I think Christ would turn over the money-tables, in their temples, and say to them,

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in” (Matthew 23:13).

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess” (Matthew 23:25).

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27).

“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:33).

Yes, I think Christ would preach like that to the false preachers and false teachers of our day and of our time!

But He never preached like that to the multitudes of sinners who came to hear Him. To them He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” He spoke softly to the woman at the well, though she had been married five times, and was living in adultery when He met her. He spoke softly to those who were diseased and dying, “and as many as touched [His garments] were made perfectly whole” (Matthew 14:36). To the woman taken in the very act of adultery He said softly, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). To the thief on the cross beside Him, He said, “To day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). To the palsied man He said, “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee” (Matthew 9:2). To the sinful woman who kissed His feet, He said, “Thy sins are forgiven” (Luke 7:48).

Did Jesus ever laugh? He may have, but it is not recorded in the Bible. On the pages of Scripture we are told He was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). And on the pages of Scripture we are told three times that He wept, and in our text we see that this was part of His personality – and an important part. It is difficult to imagine the passionless Buddha weeping – impossible to think of the impassive Roman gods, or the cold-blooded Allah of Islam, shedding tears. The tears of Jesus show us the compassion of His heart toward human suffering.

Most of you know that I have great respect for Winston Churchill. But you may not know him as England knew him during the Second World War.

St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, during the bombing.

You may only know his stern face from the iconic photograph by Yousuf Karsh. But in the long months that London was being gutted and burned by Hitler’s bombs, the English people often saw him in a different way. After a night of bombing, they would see him walking through the ruins of their homes with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Churchill during the bombing of London.

He stops outside a ruined shelter where forty adults and children had died the night before. A crowd gathers as Churchill wipes the tears from his eyes. The crowd shouts, “We thought you would come!” An old woman cries out, “You see, he really cares, he’s crying.” Then there is another cry from the crowd, “We can take it! You tell Hitler, we can take it!” Hitler might destroy their homes and their city with his bombs, but only by destroying their spirit could he defeat them. It has been said that Churchill’s tears for his people did more than anything else to overcome the power of the Nazi war machine. He wept when he saw people standing in line in the ruined street, waiting to buy seed for their canaries. He wept when he saw the bodies of dead and dying children in the rubble. He never wept out of fear, but always for the suffering of his countrymen.

No, Churchill was not a Christian doctrinally. But he had learned to feel emotions like a Christian from his old Methodist nanny, Mrs. Everest. Her photograph hung near his bed till the day he died. Thus, he had the emotions of a Christian, more than any other leader I can think of in our time. It is impossible to imagine the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or Vladimir Putin, or Barack Obama crying out of compassion for the suffering of their people. Compassion is a Christian virtue – taught to the cold Roman world of the First Century by Jesus, “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

“Man of sorrows,” what a name,
   For the Son of God who came,
Ruined sinners to reclaim!
   Hallelujah! What a Saviour!
(“Hallelujah, What a Saviour!” by Philip P. Bliss, 1838-1876).

Three times we are told in Scripture that Jesus wept.

I. First, Jesus weeps over the city.

He came into Jerusalem one morning riding on a donkey. A great multitude of people followed Him crying out, “Hosanna to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest” (Matthew 21:9). This is called the “Triumphal Entry” of Jesus on Palm Sunday.

Jesus’ triumphal entry on “Palm Sunday.”

But we are seldom told how it ended that day,

“And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it” (Luke 19:41).

Dr. W. A. Criswell was one of the three greatest preachers I have ever heard. He was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas for nearly sixty years. In one of his sermons, Dr. Criswell spoke of a preacher who had recently gone to pastor a church in a great city.

      “When the time came for him to preach he was not there. A deacon was told to find the preacher. When he found him the preacher was in his office, standing at the window, looking over a vast slum area of the sprawling city. As he looked out over those slum buildings, the pastor was crying. The deacon said to him, ‘Sir, the people are waiting and the time has come for you to preach.’ The pastor replied, ‘I was just caught up in the sorrows and distresses and brokenheartedness and hopelessness of the people. Just look. Just look’ – as he pointed to the city. The deacon replied, ‘Yes, sir, I know. But you will soon get used to it. The time has come for you to preach.’”

And then Dr. Criswell said,

“That is what I’m afraid of in me, in the church, in all the churches. We get used to it. People are lost – what of it? They have no hope – what of it? And finally we get used to it – and pass it by. In that we are different from Christ. ‘And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.’” (W. A. Criswell, Ph.D., The Compassionate Christ, Crescendo Book Publications, 1976, p. 58).

When Jesus stood on the Mount of Olives that day and looked over the city of Jerusalem, who would have thought that just forty years later it would be gone? Who would have thought that one generation later the legions of the Roman general Titus would hammer down the gates and the walls, and set fire to the temple of God? Nothing would be left but part of a stone wall that had surrounded the Holy Temple. “Your house is left unto you desolate.” And He cried. Jesus wept over the lost in the city.

Someone says, “But pastor, what can we do?” We cannot save all the people. We cannot even save most of the people. But we can save some of the people. You can come on Wednesday and Thursday nights to evangelism. You can come to evangelism on Saturday night! You can go and get them on Sunday afternoon! You can do that! Some day the streets of our city will be filled with debris and smoke and blood and death. Some day it will be too late to save anyone. Now, in this hour, go forth as soldiers of the cross and followers of the Lamb. Now is the hour to help poor, lost sinners find Christ, find forgiveness, and find hope! “And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it.”

II. Second, Jesus weeps in sympathy.

He told His Disciples, “Our friend Lazarus...is dead” (John 11:11, 14). He said, “I go to awaken him” – that is, to raise him from the dead. And so they went to Bethany, to the home of Lazarus. The pagans spoke of a “graveyard.” But Christians speak of a “cemetery” – which is a Greek word meaning a sleeping place, where we place our dead until Jesus comes to awaken them. That is what Jesus is going to do for Lazarus. But He waited four days to make the miracle show forth His deity and His power, so they would believe in Him.

Now Jesus approaches the tomb of Lazarus. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, meets Jesus as He comes near.

“When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled” (John 11:33).

In the original Greek it means that Jesus completely broke down, His chest heaving, wailing, snorting, gasping (ĕmbrimaŏmai) – deeply agitated, roiled like the sea in a storm, deeply disturbed, very troubled (tarassō). Have you ever felt like that when someone very close to you dies? I have. I have broken down and wailed, and gasped and heaved. I have been deeply disturbed, roiled like boiling water, deeply agitated. I have only felt that extreme pain and heaviness a few times in my life – but those were enough to make me understand what Jesus felt. I felt like that when my sweet grandmother, Mom Flowers, died. I felt like that when my life caved in at the liberal Southern Baptist seminary. I felt like that when my mother, Cecelia, died. It is not wrong. Jesus shows us, by His sorrow, that it is no sin for us to sometimes feel sorrow too. He was moved with strong compassion by the sorrow of Mary, and Martha, and the friends of Lazarus, who wept because he died.

Jesus knows He will raise Lazarus from the dead a few minutes later. But He is broken down and anguished by the very fact of death, and the sorrow it brings to us. And then, two verses later, in the eleventh chapter of John, we are given the shortest verse in the entire Bible. Through His anguish and sobbing, Jesus said, “Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see.” Then the shortest verse,

“Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

He shared the grief of Mary and Martha, because He also loved their brother Lazarus. And Jesus shares our griefs and sorrows too. I pity the young people of your generation. In too many churches they no longer sing the old hymns – the ones that touch the heart and comfort the soul. Kids today don’t know them, and thus cannot turn to them in times of trouble. But the old hymns are the ones that have carried my soul through the darkness.

What a friend we have in Jesus,
   All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
   Everything to God in prayer...
Can we find a friend so faithful,
   Who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness,
   Take it to the Lord in prayer.
(“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” by Joseph Scriven, 1819-1886).

“Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

The precious tears of Jesus. The compassion of Jesus. Thank God for the sympathy of Jesus.

Dr. Henry M. McGowan took me with his family to a Baptist church for the first time when I was a boy. He once told me I was like a son to him. My family and I went back to Vernon, Texas to see him several times. On one of those trips he gave me a little blank verse poem that explained a lot of things. It was written by a girl named Mary Stevenson when she was only 14:

One night I dreamed a dream.
As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.
Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.
For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,
One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,
I looked back at the footprints in the sand.
I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,
especially at the very lowest and saddest times,
there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.
“Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,
You'd walk with me all the way.
But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,
there was only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”

He whispered, “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you.
Never, ever, during your trials and testings.
When you saw only one set of footprints,
It was then that I carried you.”
   (“Footprints in the Sand” by Mary Stevenson, 1922-1999; written in 1936).

Jesus weeps over our cities – lost, without hope. Jesus weeps with us in sympathy – when we go through times of sorrow.

III. Third, Jesus weeps for us as He atones for our sins.

Hebrews 5:7 says,

“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared” (Hebrews 5:7).

This is Jesus, weeping in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before He was crucified. Dr. Criswell said,

What is the meaning of the agony in Gethsemane? When He suffered in agony so that in prayer His “sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44) ...The prophet Isaiah said, “God shall make his soul an offering for sin.” Isaiah said, “God shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied.” Somehow, in a mystery into which we cannot enter, God made Him to be sin for us. And in bearing the weight and burden of all the sins of the world, He cried with strong crying and tears, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” (ibid., p. 60).

Jesus cried with heavy tears, for God to spare His life in Gethsemane, so He could live to take our sins in His body to the Cross the next morning. And on the Cross He cried, “It is finished” (John 19:30) – and He bowed His head and died. With strong crying and tears, He was nailed to the Cross to pay the full penalty for our sins.

Up Calvary’s mountain, one dreadful morn,
   Walked Christ my Saviour, weary and worn;
Facing for sinners death on the Cross,
   That He might save us from endless loss.
Blessed Redeemer! Precious Redeemer!
   Seems now I see Him on Calvary’s tree;
Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading –
   Blind and unheeding – dying for me!
(“Blessed Redeemer” by Avis Burgeson Christiansen, 1895-1985).

I am asking you to trust Jesus, who shed many tears, and poured out His Blood on the Cross to save you from sin and Judgment. He is now in Heaven, at the right hand of God. Come with simple faith and trust Him. His precious Blood will cleanse you from all sin – and give to you eternal life. Amen. Dr. Chan, please lead us in prayer.

(END OF SERMON)
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Scripture Read Before the Sermon by Mr. Abel Prudhomme: Luke 22:39-44.
Solo Before the Sermon by Mr. Benjamin Kincaid Griffith:
“Blessed Redeemer” (by Avis Burgeson Christiansen, 1895-1985).